Once Upon An Accident
by silversrider
Summary: Danny's accident left him with some cool ghost powers. Something to fight for. Or did it? Coma theory.
1. Prologue

_So this is my first DP fic..._

 _Let's hope you guys enjoy it :D_

 _(I don't own anything)_

* * *

 **Prologue**

 _Pain._

 _An overwhelming feeling of all his being clinging to his body for dear life._

 _Blast._

 _Light blinding his sight, screaming, silence._

* * *

It hadn't been necessary, but who wouldn't want to check out their parents _ghost portal_?! Even his two friends, Sam and Tucker, had been excited to go. And that was saying something, since they weren't the fondest of science either. They all had been through middle school: The place where their educational dreams turned into nightmares. Now that they had made it to high school, it was bound to get worse. Danny, a straight-C student hadn't heard of a student ever collecting this much Ds and Fs just in the first week. But then, he was Danny Fenton, loser _Especialé_. He held a laugh under his breath, since even he wasn't sure whether that was even a real word in _any_ language.

"And there, that is the... Uh-" Danny hesitated. The name that his parents had given the strange machinery seemed even more unlikely than what it was _supposed_ to do. Jazz had called it an abomination of physics, the known rules of the universe. He had shrugged and returned to his daydream when his parents explained the thing in front of them.

Tucker and Sam closed in, hanging to the words on his lips. Danny blinked, and recomposed himself. "The ghost portal." He grinned, refusing to give the huge steel mount on the wall its real name; _The Fenton Vicious Dimension Tearer_. His friends looked it up and down, down and up again, before looking back at the fourteen year old in front of it.

"You're... Serious?" Sam pointed out what she and Tucker both had been itching to say and Danny cast his eyes downward. He moved his feet a little and tried to stick his hands in the non-existing pockets of the hazmat suit.

"Y-yeah." He sighed and then shrugged. "Okay, it isn't working yet, and they kind of gave up on getting the whole thing to work but..." He looked at the colossal frame. "Just imagine!" He bit his lip and looked over his friends, their stares obviously depicting him as the freak of the day. Was this the same look he gave his parents when they rambled all about their ghost stories?

"I'll show you guys!" Before his thoughts caught up with him he jumped right in the tube shaped monstrosity. He hit the switch on the inside, not even wondering why the button was right there, nor wondering what it would do. The machine did power up, lights beaming all around him, smoke started to fill the room ever so slowly. He glanced at his friends, now more scared than anything else. Before he could jump out the machine came to life, blasting right against his body. It fell over his body with a weird ticklish sensation before it turned to white hot pain. He screamed as nothing but pain filled all of his senses.

It was as if thousand, or maybe hundreds of thousands volts were jolting right through his body. He could see his friends standing over him and behind them there was the roaring sound of some sort of machine. Every breath he drew filled his body more with pain than air and he wasn't sure if he could stay conscious for much longer. Tucker tried shaking him, but was stopped by Sam. "You might make it worse!" She hissed and pushed the techno-geek out of her way before glancing back in shock.

"DANNY!" Somewhere someone called out his name and within a second a big orange figure was kneeling next to him. "Danno, Danny, talk to me." His father pleaded but Danny was struggling to cling on to consciousness. He felt like a heavy mist was entangling his mind before it began taking over his body, making his limbs feel heavy and weak. He blinked, struggled against the dark and let out a last deep breath.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading!_


	2. Chapter 1: Invisible Arms

_And here we have chapter one! Please enjoy! ^_^  
_

* * *

 _ **Part 1**_

 **Chapter 1: Invisible Arms  
**

He had woken up in the hospital, alone in a snowy white room with a lot of beeps and hums around him. He had looked around, confused at first, but then the reality sunk into his mind. He must have had an accident. Something had happened and had made him sore all over, yet he didn't feel sick. He slowly straightened his legs before sitting up in his bed. Nothing happened, no dizziness, no painful stretching of stitches, just soreness. Danny slowly hung his legs from bed and watched his feet touch the linoleum of the floor. Obviously he was in a hospital and obviously he should have stayed put instead of wandering but... There was some creeping cold that he needed to walk off. He huffed and looked at his left hand that seemed to be bound to the bed.

"Of course." He muttered, seeing the IV on his hand. He bit his tongue and slowly inched the needle out of his hand. If Tucker had been here he would have freaked out so much. But Tucker wasn't here. Nor was Sam. Or his family. He felt the cold floor with his feet, took a deep breath and stood up without any difficulties. It seemed odd how he was in a hospital room and yet he felt great. Better than he had ever felt, if Danny was honest with himself. He walked to the little sink and peered in the mirror. It was just plain same old him, a teenager that was about to head to high school, make goofy friends and go through puberty. Yet there was something different about him, even though he couldn't really tell what it was. Something inside of him had changed and he knew it. Without even catching someone's eye Danny made his way out of the hospital with ease. It should have struck him as weird, but he was too preoccupied with going home to wonder about other people.

Fenton Works was just a couple of miles away from the hospital and Danny reached it within minutes. He pushed open the door and stepped right into his own living room, silent as it may be. His parents must be busy in the lab and Jazz was probably studying at school. Danny didn't give it a second thought and walked straight to his room.

His room was still the chaos as it had always been and Danny sighed in relief. He hadn't been gone for long or for sure his nosy parents and sister would have 'cleaned up' for him. He turned towards the mirror before jumping in shock. He barely suppressed a scream as he noticed how his right arm was completely invisible. "What the-?!"

He moved his arm around and could feel the air move away from the invisible mass, but the arm itself was still absent. "This is seriously freaky." He muttered and spend several more minutes surveying his invisible limp before it slowly turned back to a normal, ordinary arm. Danny slowly breathed out before turning to his desk and old laptop. He had gotten it from Jazz when she had convinced their parents she 'desperately' needed a new one for her studies. It was sufficient for his schoolwork, but gaming simply wasn't in the question on the old system. Even after Tucker had tweaked it some it would crash from as simply as clicking on the _Doom_ link. But Danny wasn't going to game now, no, he needed to find his friends. They seriously needed a talk, and he wanted one rather sooner than later. He opened the lid of the laptop and waited for it to slowly power on. He opened up the messenger program and laid his fingers across the keyboard. He started typing or rather- he tried to.

Suddenly his chin had made rough contact with the wood of the desk as both of his hands and underarms had gone intangible. He jumped up and screeched in horror as he tried waving the feeling away. It took several minutes before they faded back into something that would pass for a normal set of arms. Danny took a deep breath and again sat down in his chair to try and send a message to Tucker.

'Tucker, we need to talk. Meet me in an hour in the Nasty Burger. Bring Sam.' He wrote to his best friend before inspecting his shivering arms with a nervous twitch. What was happening to him?!

* * *

Both Tucker and Sam seemed absolutely exhausted when he met them that day in the Nasty Burger. They seemed surprised he was already out of the hospital, and he was wise enough to keep his mouth about how he had just walked out of that place. He felt fine, great even, so there was no reason for him to be there in the first place.

"Dude. You gave us quite the scare." Tucker shuddered and looked Danny up and down. "How you went flying out of the Ghost Portal..."

The ghost portal. He remembered what happened, or well, kind of. He remembered going in, turning the thing on and... Well he guessed it wouldn't matter what had happened after that. Danny smiled at them. "Don't worry guys, I'm just great."

"You might be fine but we barely escaped a heart-attack." Sam shot back, even though it was obvious the girl was just joking with him.

Danny fiddled some with the straw of his milkshake before he bit his lip and looked at his two best friends. "Look guys... I need to tell you something."

Both Sam and Tucker nodded and turned their full attention to him, laying their food right back on the table.

"Something weird has been going on... My arms... They've turned invisible." Danny watched their friends' faces for a reaction, but for a moment they just seemed to stare at him.

Sam was the first to move as her brow furrowed and her eyes quickly went from his arms back to his eyes. Tucker's mouth slowly seemed to sink open, but he didn't make a sound. Danny took this as a sign to continue. "When I came home today and tried to type my message to you... My arms disappeared right through my desk!"

Of course he knew it didn't make sense to him either, but the stares he got from his friends made him feel like a lunatic. "You guys do believe me... Right?" He added after a while.

As Tucker's mouth was still agape Sam silently nodded a little. "Of course Danny, we do believe you-" She elbowed Tucker in his sides. "But..." Her voice silently trailed off.

Danny silently tried to remember the feeling he had had before, right when his hands where going through his desk. It was a subtle feeling, like a little tingling streaming from his heart to his fingertips. With a lot of concentration he managed to turn one of his fingers invisible.

"No way..." Tucker hissed as he inched closer to the finger as if he was inspecting a fascinating piece of technology. Sam's gaze, on the other hand, had shifted to Danny's eyes. "Danny..."

Danny nodded some and willed the feeling more up his arm. "Guys just imagine!" He excitedly started. "I can finally stand a chance against Dash!"

This just earned him a worried glance from his two best friends and Danny sighed. He had expected them to join in on his excitement, to also see the possibilities that his new found 'powers' gave him. "Come on!"

Tucker and Sam looked at each other before Sam took his non-invisible hand. "Danny... You should get this checked out. You should get back to the hospital... Or at least your parents. You should show them. Maybe they can fix you." The worry was clear in their eyes.

"I'm not broken!"

"We're not saying you are!" Sam quickly shook her head but the worry grew in her eyes. "Just... This is not _normal_. It can't be healthy!" She sighed and looked him straight in his eyes. "Danny, we're just worried about you. Some strange stuff happened and... You should still be in the hospital."

"I'm fine." He huffed and glanced away from their stares. He willed his hand back to visibility as he had totally forgotten about it. The power had come so naturally to him, it just felt... Right.

* * *

Sam and Tucker had insisted on walking him home from their trip to the Nasty Burger. Normally Danny would have loved to spend this time with his friends, but now there seemed to be a barrier between them. The way they had reacted to him in the Nasty Burger had hurt Danny, even though he tried to hide it. He had expected them to be excited and happy as he had finally found something that made him _special_ , but they had turned it down as dangerous and crazy. Couldn't they see the world of possibilities lying in front of them? Couldn't they be happy that he was finally more than 'Fenturd' the loser of Casper High?

Danny shook his head some to clear his thoughts. They probably were just worried... Or freaked out. Soon enough they'd come through and see the bright side of this all.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading :D  
_

 _I'm planning on updating this story every two weeks._

 _Sadly I can't make any hard promises, but I'll do my best ;)_


	3. Chapter 2: Fight Or Flight

**Chapter 2: Fight Or Flight**

 _"Play the game, but don't believe in it – that much you owe yourself … Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate."_

 _~ R. Ellison, Invisible Man_

* * *

A chill ran over his body and before he knew what came over him a wisp of his breath escaped his mouth.

"What the-?" Danny murmured and brushed his black hairs back in place. This was odd, he never had experienced this feeling before and certainly _not_ right at the end of summer. He glanced around the class room but no other student seemed affected by the sudden decrease in temperature. He shivered a little and glanced at Sam. She shoot him an anxious and worried glance back which annoyed him more than the feeling.

'I'm fine.' He mouthed at her before turning his attention back to mr. Lancer. Lancer had been his teacher before, not that Danny could remember learning anything from the balding man. He shifted some in his seat, the uneasy feeling in his chest was still rising.

Screaming woke the drowsy atmosphere in the class room and made Danny startle.

" _Invisible Man_!" Lancer exclaimed as he twisted to face the classroom door. The hallway seemed empty but Danny knew that there was something waiting. Waiting for him, for what he had become.

Lancer seemed glued in his place right before the class and the students sat there, staring silently at the door. A collective sigh was let out when nothing happened for several minutes and the teacher continued his English lesson. Danny glanced around, still having the cold and nervous feeling in his chest. It was that moment that he decided he needed to take a look at what had happened in the hallway. Without any hesitation he raised his hand. "Mr. Lancer, can I be excused?"

The class turned collectively to him to watch how Danny and Lancer stared at each other. The teacher seemed confused that somebody even had the nerves to ask to leave his class room. Danny was the first to let his gaze drop to the table, but was surprised when he received an affirmative answer. "Be quick, Daniel." Lancer huffed before continuing.

Danny rushed out of the classroom and looked right and left, only to discover a silent and empty hallway. He was almost tempted to turn back around when the cold feeling rushed over him again. With a small shiver he turned his head upwards, only to discover a ghost floating right above him. It seemed to aim a sort of gun at him with a cringe-worthy smile. "The rumors were true..." It muttered before pulling the trigger.

Danny managed to jump aside without making too much noise. His mind gave him two choices: Flee or fight.

Of course, any teenager that had a little bit of brain inside of their skull would have taken the first option without any hesitation but Danny was different. He had never been the mainstream guy, nor the smartest one around. He took a deep breath, steadied his body and looked straight at the ghost.

The ghost could have been the football team's latest addition, if he wasn't completely made out of metal. His hair and little goatee were the same flaming green with ectoplasmic energy as his piercing eyes. A sick grin spread over the ghosts face, which mimicked a human-like expression. The metal ghost wore some sort of technical armor, a black jumpsuit like piece of clothing and a necklace with a little blue skull on it.

Danny took a step back and closed his eyes, counted to ten and then opened them again. His parents had been right all this time. Ghosts did exist.

GHOSTS EXIST.

Now that that was established Danny wondered what he should do about the situation at hand. The gun was pointed at his chest once again and the ghost's arm moved right to the tricker. He could go intangible, but how? So far he had just managed to get his arms to go intangible but how would he ever be able to pull his whole body that way? He had no time to doubt himself as the gun whizzed and a spark of ectoplasmic energy was shot his way. Danny closed his eyes and pulled all his willpower into turning intangible.

Something pulled at him right around his middle area, as if someone was trying to pull his belt from his waist. Then two rings appeared and before Danny could second guess himself he wore a dark jumpsuit, white gloves and boots and a white belt. "What the?!"

"It's actually true?!" The ghost seemed delighted. "I can't wait to add you to my collection!"

"Collection?!" Danny sneered before looking at his palm. Maybe he could do some other useful things... Maybe he could make himself into a weapon?

"I'm Skulker! The Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter!" The ghost huffed. "And you're my prey." With a grin the ghost retrieved a new kind of weapon from his arsenal.

"I'm not." His voice sounded more manly than Danny could have expected and a single flame of bravery filled his chest. He willed himself to do _something,_ just anything to do against this ghost. He had to protect the other students in this school, and more importantly he had to protect himself.

Suddenly green light appeared from his right hand and without a moment hesitation Danny shot it right at the ghost. It had been a small bead of energy, but it still seemed to send the ghost flying backwards through the roof.

Danny grinned and turned, only to stare at himself in the mirror.

A green-eyed, gray-haired figure stared back.

"I'm... a ghost?"

* * *

 _Shorter chapter this time, but I will return shortly!  
_

 _Have fun lads :D_


	4. Chapter 3: The Core Close To His Heart

**Chapter 3: The Core Close To His Heart  
**

It didn't take long before Amity Park had turned into the ghost-hotspot of the world, with an invasion or two every other day. The Fenton family seemed to be the most preoccupied with these infestations, while the other citizens of Amity Park stopped caring after the fiftieths attack. Danny's life had become an interesting mix between tumbling around with ecto-entities and trying to do his homework. More often than not he would turn up to class late, sweating and bruised. But whenever he turned around to watch the news, or fold open a paper, his face would be staring right back at him. Well not _his_ face, but the face of his alter ego, Danny Phantom. It had taken ages for the media to stop calling him _inviso-Bill_ , a name courtesy of his parents, and even worse than most of the names they had given their experiments.

He had met a lot of the residents of the ghost-zone with their visits to Amity Park which he had to cut short. He hadn't made many friends with that, and the enemies were slowly forming their own army against him. Or they would have if they had had the brains to actually come up with that plan. Danny had met dad's old college friend, Vlad Masters, a guy rich enough to buy a couple of planes and a football team while still having money to spare. At first he'd been jealous of Vlad and all of his wealth, but that soon turned bitter when Vlad's real identity was shown.

After dad's old friend followed a whole range of new ghosts Danny would meet, fight and throw back into the ghost zone. Steadily he would grow better in his fighting, gain new powers and become more self-confident. Danny Phantom was turning into a real superhero while Danny Fenton was turning into a real superloser. Dash Baxter, the school's biggest bully had his target on Danny more so than on the other 'losers'. It caused Danny to gain at least half as much bruises in his human form as he did as a ghost. Yet he had to keep appearances up and couldn't show Baxter what he really was, except for the few times he pulled a harmless prank on the bully.

His best friends, Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley, were always on his side helping him out with whatever they could get their hands on. Even though Danny tried to keep his new identity a secret for his family, his sister soon found out about his ghost half. She pressed him into talking with her, something like a 'real counselor' would do, she reminded him. He kept trying to remind her that he didn't need one, but she never listened. Yes, there were enough people around him to help him through the hard times, yet he couldn't help but feel lonely from time to time.

Nobody understood what position he was in, they tried and he knew that, but simply they couldn't. No one had ever been in this position, being a teenager, a half-dead person, a superhero... Being hunted in his own home by his own parents. No, nobody could ever get what he was going through. He couldn't go home like Mikey, the nerd in his class, and be 'alone' as he probably was. Mikey would be sitting alone in his room feeling lonely, but it wouldn't reach the kind of lonely Danny would feel. No, Danny was truly alone in this world, as if everyone was watching him through a thick smokescreen he couldn't reach through.

It was like thunder set through Danny's body from time to time, leaving him cold and sweaty at the same time. He figured it was something coming from his ice core, yet he couldn't understand what precisely it was, nor would Frostbite ever tell him anything about that feeling. His mentor would just smile encouragingly and nod a little before sending him on his way.

And then there was Clockwork, the ghost of time who never seemed to have enough time to answer any of Danny's questions. He had saved Danny from making the biggest mistake of his life, a mistake that would take away everything he lived for. He was glad that Clockwork managed to fix his future, but somehow it made him feel jinxed. It felt as if every other step he had to recollect his thoughts, think through his choices, just to be sure that _he_ wouldn't be that what Danny would become.

And like this Danny lived his life, extraordinary as it may be with a feeling that something was off living in his chest, very close to his heart.

* * *

 _Short chapter, serving as a bridge between parts :)  
Hope you had fun reading nonetheless!  
_


	5. Chapter 4: A Different Danny

_Next chapter is up! This is very different from my expectations but well let's move on :D  
_

* * *

 **Chapter 4: A Different Danny**

It was different without him.

He should be here.

This. Is. Not. Fair.

"Samantha Manson!" The beer belly connected to her teacher called out. She huffed and got up, putting on her black cap and trying not to trip over the lengthy black graduation gown. Even though her grades had made a nosedive when the accident happened, now she graduated with solid As. Her parents were so proud of her achievements and they had been boasting it all around their wealthy circle of acquaintances. She strode, rather than walked, up to the aisle straight past her fellow students. None of them looked particularly interested when she was called forward, except for her best friend, Tucker Foley. He had gotten his diploma before her and was turned in his seat beaming up at her. Apparently he had no problem with forgetting about the missing entity of the day.

But she could never forget the raven haired boy with the beautiful shiny blue eyes. No, she never felt whole again after the accident had taken him and all of his antics from her life. She had blamed everything under the sun for what happened to him, but her blame couldn't take him back.

She took her diploma and the ribbons from her teacher, turned to the camera and didn't even attempt to smile. She could hear her family cheering her on, but that only made her expression darker. After a few seconds of 'posing' she walked back to her seat and zoned out to a comfortably numb place where she could forget all of her problems. She had worked hard to gain those grades and she was admitted to a law school that her parents were very excited about, Yale. Tucker had done well too, and he was actually admitted to MIT, much to Sam's dismay. Next year, they would both go their own way and both leave Danny behind.

* * *

It had taken hours before they could meet their best friend in the hospital. Or was it ex-best friend? After four years of no communication, or rather the one-sided conversations, Sam wasn't sure if it would be called 'communicating'. She and Tucker had driven straight to the hospital after their graduation ceremony to see him and 'tell' him about all that he missed. Danny hadn't reacted to anything they said, just like he had done all the years before he spent in his coma. Tucker had told him about the project he would have over the summer and she told him about the homework she was already assigned before college had even started. It felt weird to them how Danny would never finish high school (the doctors said the brain damage was irreversible even if he ever woke up, yet the Fentons kept up the life support and their hopes) and they were moving on to the next stage in their life.

Sam turned her head to the door as it opened with a soft creak and immediately tensed up. She saw the graying forms of Danny's parents softly entering their son's room, with their ever present worry drawn upon their faces. They nodded to Sam and Tucker, but discarded their sons visitors within minutes. They had spent hours together in this room, just praying, hoping for Danny to come around. It had never happened.

The Fentons spent their days in silence next to their son's bed and would leave back to their home when the nurse urged them to. The once brilliant scientists now seemed dull and expressionless and no one had ever heard of them experimenting again. The accident had scarred the family badly, maybe even worse than it would have if Danny had completely vanished from their lives.

Jasmine Fenton had tried leaving them behind to go to college, but soon she moved back towards home again to live with her parents and to be close to her little brother. She had found another college offering psychology courses closer to home, even though it wasn't as prestigious as the college she was going to before. No, the accident had changed all of their lives for the worse, and this was especially true for Danny.

There was a special psychologist assigned to the Fentons. Her name was Penelope Spectra, and she was specialized in 'tragic' cases like this. Every week she would gather them around Danny's bed to talk to- she claimed even with- him, about all aspects of their lives. She told them it would help them cope with the loss of their friend, son and brother, but Samantha dared to claim she made them feel even worse. It became awkwardly obvious how Danny wouldn't ever respond to them again, or how they would have to continue without him. The only one enforcing Spectra's visits had been Jazz, though soon even she would admit that the meetings left her more drained after than before.

Sam just now remembered that the weekly session would be today, in a few minutes. She tensed and glanced over at Tucker, who didn't seem to be bothered with either the Fentons entering the room nor that the time for the meeting drew close. He was talking to Danny about this 'language' as he kept referencing it to, yet it was solely used for communication with computers. It was named after a far away country - Cuba or something - and Tucker made it sound like some weird mixed English dialect with recurring words. Sam knew that Tucker just talked to be talking to his friend, not to say something interesting. Tucker had even claimed that Danny made a perfect 'rubber duck' to test his code on. She didn't dare ask what that was about.

Instead of claiming to be a part of this 'discussion' concerning which loop -whatever that may be - would be the best to use in a certain situation she turned herself towards Maddie and Jack Fenton. "Hello." She nodded politely.

"Graduation day, huh?" Jack replied, with a ghost of a smile on his face and a small wave to their caps on the side table.

Sam nodded some. "Yeah... Yes it is..."

Jack glanced over at his son's bed, before looking back at her with a numb expression in his eyes. "You guys should be celebrating with your friends and family."

She smiled faintly back at him. "But we're celebrating with a friend..." She mumbles as she softly pets the bed where Danny is lying. "He should have been there too..."

Jack didn't seem to be catching that bit as he glanced over his son's bed once more. "Doctor Clockwork said it is time..."

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed this chapter.  
_

 _The programming language Tucker was talking about is 'Java'_. _:)_


End file.
